Non-Fiction: Guinness World Records bounces
Guinness World Records 2023 (GWR) soared up the Top 50 to the runner-up spot, bouncing 32% in volume week on week. It also leapfrogged Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (Headline) to take the Hardback Non-fiction number one for the first time.
A stalwart in the Christmas-season bestseller chart, Guinness World Records hasn’t claimed the festive top spot since 2014. Could this be its year? Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us (S&S) and Richard Osman’s The Bullet that Missed (Penguin) are currently looking like the frontrunners, but Non-fiction, saving a late surge by Jamie Oliver’s One (Michael Joseph), is looking a little barren in potential Christmas Number One contenders. Of course, Pinch of Nom’s latest will be along in mid-December to challenge for the pole, before spending the entirety of January atop the chart.
Tyson Fury’s Gloves Off (Century) was the highest new entry in Hardback Non-fiction, closely followed by Beth Mead’s Lioness (Seven Dials) and Mark Noble’s Boleyn Boy (HarperCollins). This trickle of sporting memoirs could become a deluge if England and/ or Wales outperform expectations in the upcoming World Cup. The latest edition of Gareth Southgate’s Anything is Possible (Penguin) is poised to spike in sales if the national team achieves the expected with a win against Iran next week.
